Review: Nokia N95 8GB

There have been only a handful of real technological innovations during our industrial and technological ages. Most of what we have created and devised for ourselves and our human comforts have been derivatives of something else. It is the core technology which was the real breakthrough, as is the case with the slick and cool Nokia N95 8GB. While it is a decidedly clean, powerful, and pretty converged device, it remains just that; a stepping stone. Many pundits and fanbois call the N95 8GB, Nokia’s iPhone. Personally, I don’t see it. What I do see is a phone, a media player, a personal media player, a PIM, a game machine, and a camera (actually two) all rolled into one device.

Does it thrill me? Yes. I can say that clearly and without quibble. Does it move me, though? No. It cannot and will not move me like the iPhone does. To give you a clear idea of what it takes to move me, here’s a small, incomplete, unqualified list of things which have (in no particular order): the entire Aston Martin line, the Apple Newton MessagePads, the Original Palm III, NEC’s MobilePro line before the 900c, the birth of my one and only child, a month in the Maine wilderness on Outward Bound when I was 15, Apple’s iPhone, IBM’s ThinkPad line (pre-Lenovo), the Atari 800, the Amiga 3000 with Video Toaster at the Pasadena Community Access Channel.

If you note the theme, these are things or events which were singular to me. If you’ll excuse the events from the list and focus only on the technologies you may detect that there are certain forms and functions which I find seminal. It was NEC who developed a truly usable ultraportable with a true convergence of power and usability, with primary focus on its fully typeable keyboard. The Newton’s and the Palm III speak for themselves as the co-parents of the PDA movement. IBM’s ThinkPad line redefined what a laptop should be. The Atari 800 was, at least in my estimation, the first true integration of gaming and computing with any quality behind it. The iPhone is the epitome of all the lessons everyone has learned about a real pocket companion. And really, who the hell can resist falling in love with an Aston Martin.

Now, when you look at the N95 8GB what do you see? Its just another Symbian S60 device at its core, its really thick, the slider slides too easily, the absence of a better keyboard is very irksome, the directional pad sucks for playing games, and there’s no lens cover for the 5MP camera. Yet, despite all of this, people are clamoring for it. Maybe because there’s so much more to the N95 8GB than the laundry list of failings. In reality, there is. There’s so much to this handset and Nokia has done very well making the S60 version of the Symbian OS work good with one hand. In order to clearly see the quality, I’m going to review each element of it separately.

The Phone

Lets face it. Nokia makes phones. They make some really good ones and they make some abysmally bad ones, but the N95 8GB is not one of the latter. This is, in my opinion, one of the finer smart-ish phones Nokia has ever made. Why smart-ish? I believe that any real smartphone must have a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard. The N95 8GB has neither, but it still manages to do just about everything a real smartphone can do. Just don’t get any ideas that you can really manage your email with it.

Everything you’d expect in a mobile handset is here. It has a call history, quality voicemail access, a complete address book complete with in-depth contacts data fields, and it even integrates VoIP technology via its embedded 802.11b/g radio. Where it excels is in speakerphone mode. The device has stereo speakers, one on either side of the top of the unit, and they sound really good. The mic even works so your other party can hear you. The N95 8GB could truly act as a conferencing system stand-in if the need arose.

The handsets VoIP capabilities appear to also be rather cool, though I didn’t get a chance to review them. It does come with GIZMO integration which is a kind of Skype service. I’ve looked over the site and I even have an account which I created a few years back, but I’ve never really used it. Just to put that in perspective, I’ve had about US$12 in Skype credit for the last two years. Its not that I don’t like the idea. I just never use it. I guess I’m a fuddy duddy in that sense. You have a phone, you use it to call people, and they know you by that number.

The Media Player

Let me make this clear right up front. This is no iPod or an iPod killer. I have a 60GB 5G iPod in black which I keep in its case all the time and generally use as a hard drive based media player for my car. My lappy, a MacBook Pro, is my iTunes when I’m not driving. With that said, Nokia has devised a rather good media player. I’m more than a little miffed that they use RealPlayer for video, but I haven’t tried hacking that just yet, nor have I tried to watch any full-length movies on it. I just don’t like Real or RealPlayer. They’ve never been good. Its just me.

Audio and video are separated into two different applications which are converged via the Gallery tool, which gives you a unified look at all of your media-related files. It also doesn’t care whether its on the phones internal memory or on the Mass Storage drive, as Nokia refers to it. You just pick something and go. The N95 8GB not only runs the app necessary to view the file, but it also tracks your moves so when the video or audio is done, you have a back button which returns you to the Gallery. It makes what would normally be something navigation intensive into something smooth and usable.

On my review handset, I was mostly treated to the UK version of the N95 8GB experience. I was able to subscribe to podcasts, download videos from various providers, look at popular YouTube videos, and even gawk (or guffaw) at some included Nokia marketing material. There’s one video called “Snowboard” which really shows off the N95’s audio and video capabilities, too. I don’t know if that file, however, is included with all N95 8GB devices. At the time of this review, the Nokia Music Store was not yet available.

The Game Console

Back when it came out I reviewed the original Nokia N-Gage, affectionately known as the “Metal Taco”, and I did not like it. Nokia sent me two so I could use the multiplayer capabilities and one of them was DOA. Needless to say, I wasn’t too thrilled about the N-Gage over my then hot Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The controls were good and the games seemed cool, especially Tony Hawk, but it just didn’t fulfill the ideals of all components. It was a miserable phone.

However, the N95 8GB isn’t miserable as a phone, though its not that good as a game console. This mostly sources from the controls. Lets face it. Its a mobile handset. It was designed as a mobile handset. It functions as a mobile handset. The controls just suck when it comes to games. I don’t really understand why all these phone makers keep designing their phone buttons all the same way and then expect people to play games on them.

The idea of to stop putting the Select button in the middle of the cursor controller. If that weren’t bad enough, everyone then clusters the Call, End Call, Left Soft, Right Soft, and various other buttons right around it. Density supports convenience in phones meant to be phones, but not on phones also destined to be game consoles. Once the madness ends, then I’ll be interested. Until then, there are few games I would spend a lot of time playing on a mobile handset.

The Camera

First off, understand that I’m am against combining large megapixel cameras into mobiles. Its not right and its unfair to the consumer who has to either settle or demote their desires in order to own a specific phone. I can guarantee you that when people go to buy a phone, their first thought isn’t about the camera. To whit, when consumers are looking for cameras, they aren’t shopping for phones. The addition of the camera is the markets attempt to converge for the sake of sales and could care less about what you think.

With that said, the Nokia N95 8GB comes with not one, but two cameras. The first one is a massive 5MP auto-focus camera with built-in flash which can take video and has a load of features. The second is a .3MP affair on the face of the phone and is included to facilitate video calls (as if there were any). I suppose you can call another N95 8GB, but I don’t know if you need a specific plan. Its also likely that it could tie into the GIZMO system which does support video over IP connections.

Pictures are nice and video is very clear. I’m not a photographic or videographic expert, so I can’t tell you any of the specifications aside from resolution. The flash seems to work very well, but I’m a big fan of no flash shots, since I feel it ruins the natural light. You switch from Image to Video modes via a menu selection. The Video mode captures MPEG-4 and 3GP, and the Image mode captures… images. Yeah. JPEG, I believe.

How It Talks

What I mean here is how it plays with others. I’m a Mac guy, as you likely know (and if you didn’t, now you do), so I prefer that most, if not all, of my toys be both Mac and Windows capable, even better if they can do Linux. In the case of the N95 8GB, it would not initially mount on my Mac desktop. It would, however, work with Windows inside of Parallels and in Vista under Boot Camp. There are several ways for the N95 8GB to talk with computers. Its primary form is through Nokia’s complex collection of desktop communication software for Windows. While the new interface is cleaner than earlier versions, I still find it overly cumbersome for general use. It would be nice if they could develop a Palm Desktop-like integrated environment instead of having the dozen or so little apps they use now.

What I do find shameful is that it takes about 40 minutes to transfer 1.45GBs of music files over a USB 2.0 connection, in both Windows and Mac OS X. This simply isn’t acceptable. I can sync 20+ GBs to my 5G iPod over USB 2.0 in the same time, if not less. I tested in Mac OS X using the Mass Storage setting, in Windows Vista Ultimate under Boot Camp, and on an HP dc7800p Small Form Factor desktop system running Windows Vista Business Edition. Its not the source hardware, its the phone which I believe is causing the delay. I would have thought that Nokia would have more throughly tested this before allowing it to go to market.

The Wrap Up

Back in early 2007 I was listening to the TWiT podcast and Leo LaPorte was saying how he has an N95 that he loves, but was distressed at how short the battery life was. Jump forward almost a year and we now have Tyler from The Dojo with an 8GB version of the same phone, and I can say that the battery life must have improved somehow. I’m not thrilled by the fact that I can run down the battery in a few hours if I try really hard, but even with music and video playing, I’m not doing a lot of damage, unless I’m using GPS. In any case, you should count on having a car charger.

Now, however, comes the hard part. Sure, its easy to review something, but how objective could I be if I didn’t also evaluate the device’s cost, and herein lies the rub with the Nokia N95 8GB device. It’s priced in the US at US$779, just shy of $800. Add yourself a nice leather case and tax if you’re in a state which has one, and you’re talking close to US$1,000 for a phone. A PHONE. Logically, though, that’s the cost from Nokia direct. They charge based on the cost and don’t subtract a subsidy based on revenue projections per user.

How much would you spend if you were to buy each device separately? First, its a really good phone. That will run you roughly US$300 without subsidy. Getting a decent 5MP camera with quality optics will run you around US$200. An 8GB Apple iPod Nano with video retails for around US$250. Total that up and you you come up with $750. Get cases for all of those devices and you’re look at another $150, so $900. Now, total in the cost of having to juggle all of these devices which is really a subjective concept, and you’re talking at least the same cost, if not more, of the N95 8GB.

So, can I recommend it? Sure. Am I swayed by all of its features and just love it to death forever and ever and ever? No. The one thing that kills me is the standard phone keypad. If it just slid the other way and had a little thumbboard, then I’d be all over it and a half. That I could do, but that’s not what Nokia did.